Bits and pieces, news, views, reviews and stuff
On a recent visit to Ashton Court I was reminded of this piece of bronze art that was on display at the front of the mansion building.
There wasn’t anything that I could see that said more about the art, so no idea about the title or the sculptor?
What’s the sculpture?
I quite like it though.
Back in December I posted a blog post in my Then and Now series on Ashton Court. I had over the years taken various photographs of Ashton Court from the basically the same location and perspective.
It probably wouldn’t surprise you that recently going through some old photograh prints (as in photographs taken with film and developed) I found this photograph of Ashton Court I had taken in the late 1990s
Though not quite the same perspective and location, it’s pretty close. Back then cars were allowed quite a way into the park to park (there were no meters back then either). You can also tell the age of this photograph from the age of the cars in the shot.
This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.
I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.
I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart. The first instance of this that I noticed was in May 2019 when I went to Manchester.
It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!
This view was taken in October 2014.
This was on our most recent visit to Ashton Court in September 2020.
Six years apart and pretty much the same view!
I was there in June 2017 as well and took this very similar shot.
Ashton Court is a mansion house and estate to the west of Bristol in England. Although the estate lies mainly in North Somerset, it is owned by the City of Bristol.
The first Gromit in the list is 1. Deerest Gromit who can be found at the UWE Bower Ashton Campus close to Ashton Court.
The design depicts the scenery surrounding the campus, including the lush fields of green and roaming deer.
Back in 2015 I attempted to see and photograph all 70 Shaun the Sheeps I managed to get 62. This time I am aiming to get all 67 sculptures. I have created this page to record all the sculptures we find. Download the app to find the sculptures.
In the heart of the Ashton Court Estate next to the mansion is the gromit 2. Wild at Heart.
I missed the sculptures at Ashton Courts back in 2015, so was keen to capture the Gromit here. He is covered in endangered species.
Don’t miss the back of him, which has a wonderful turtle pained on his back.
Back in 2015 I attempted to see and photograph all 70 Shaun the Sheeps I managed to get 62. This time I am aiming to get all 67 sculptures.
I have created this page to record all the sculptures we find.
Out of the 70 Shauns across Bristol we managed to capture 62 of them.
These are the eight we missed. Luckily other people managed to capture them on film.
We did in fact find 12. Bumble but we were driving pass and decided it wasn’t safe to stop and we would go back at some point, we never did.
Over on Henleaze Road was 14. The Tale of Peter Rabbit™ a somewhat scary looking rabbit-sheep hybrid.
The very 1970s looking 15. Groovy Baby!
We had intended to visit Ashton Court to see 16. Buttercup and 17. Flora but it was pouring with rain on the two days we thought we might have time to do this. So both sheep were missed. Buttercup was in the courtyard next to the cafe.
17. Flora was also at Ashton Court, up by the Golf Club.
32. Sparkles the Unicorn was hiding away on Horfield Common, what stopped us was the sheer amount of traffic around Bristol, on what should have been a quiet day for vehicles.
Looking very tasty is 33. Star Bake next to the Boston Tea Party on the Gloucester Road,
Another one where the amount of traffic contributed to missing them, this time it was 34. Primrose at St Werburgh’s City Farm.
Photographs by Mary Kelly on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 who managed to capture all seventy.